


We'll Be Alright

by ghostiewriter101



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dealing with grief and loss, F/M, Implications of Depression, Like it's really fucking ansgty, no idea where this came from but hey ho, this really put me in my feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:36:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29737443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostiewriter101/pseuds/ghostiewriter101
Summary: Sometimes it’s hard to explain all the feelings whirling in your head. Sometimes it’s hard to word your thoughts. Sometimes it hard to do anything whenever everyone treats you like fragile glass. After everything they’ve been through, Kiara has found it difficult to cope. But it just so happens that a certain blond is there to be the rock she needs.
Relationships: JJ/Kiara (Outer Banks)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32





	We'll Be Alright

**Author's Note:**

> I literally started this last night, I was in an angsty mood and this is the result of it💀I just needed to get all the angst out so I could work on happier fics so enjoy this punch in the heart :)

Everyone told Kiara Carrera that things would be easier.

Her parents told her that.

Her therapist told her that.

Even the people that she passed on the street would tell her that.

After that fateful night _The Phantom_ went down, everyone told Kiara that things would start to look up. That the grief and pain she felt from losing two people close to her would pass. That one day they would be a happy memory to look back onto, two innocent teens avenged in her memories. They told her that the nightmares of finding their bodies washed up on the beach, the overbearing thoughts on how that night could have gone differently, the constant fear that she would lose anyone else would all go away. That one day, like a switch had been flipped, Kiara would be able to move on with her life. 

She tried. She really did.

But despite what her therapist told her, despite the comfort she tried to give, Kiara couldn’t help but feel an underlying resentment towards the woman. Because she wouldn’t understand, she couldn’t understand what Kiara was feeling. The fancy degrees and courses she took wouldn’t tell her shit about everything Kiara and her friends had been through. She wasn’t some poster-child for the five stages of grief. She wasn’t angry or depressed or in denial. She didn’t want to sit in a circle with strangers and tell them how she felt. She hated how everyone monitored her every move like she was about to snap. She hated how they treated her like some fragile bomb that was going to explode any minute.

She hated that they didn’t understand.

She hated that they wouldn’t leave her alone.

She hated that no matter what she did nothing would change the past.

Sometimes if she closed her eyes and tried hard enough, she could picture herself on that dock. Looking up at John B as they said their goodbyes, arms wrapped around her two other boys whilst promises were made to reunite soon. Promises that wouldn’t be fulfilled. Watching the boat zoom off, the confusion of feelings she felt as she watched John B practically ride off into his death. Her thoughts swirling and the need to just let them out and make all the buzzing in her head stop. Feeling her lips against Pope’s, his breath against her skin and all she could think was about how _wrong_ it felt, how _guilty_ she felt and yet when she opened her eyes to stare up at him, she could’ve sworn the same realisation flashed through his eyes.

Then the sirens came. And everything went to shit.

The heavy weight on her shoulders as they sat there, listening to Ward Cameron sit amongst the others like he was an innocent man, like he had done nothing wrong. Kiara contemplated slapping that sleazy man—if you could even call him a man—but the warning and grounding grip of Pope’s hand placed over hers stopped any of those thoughts before she could carry them out.

And then the radio went silent.

And Kiara could’ve sworn she felt her heart stop.

She saw Shoupe enter the tent, heard the words leaving his mouth. She could hear JJ screaming, see officers holding him back. She could hear Pope say something, see him in her peripheral vision but it was like the world was drowning out around her. She felt her parents arms wrap around her, a measly sob of _“they’re dead”_ leaving her lips as she cried in their arms. Cried at the loss of two pogues: the loss of a boy she considered her brother and the girl who she never fully got a chance to redeem her friendship with.

Overwhelmed with regret and guilt and pain. So many emotions, so little time to focus on one. Kiara could barely keep herself standing when she turned to look at the boys, seeing the Heyward’s grasp JJ into a hug as the blond broke down in a way she hadn’t seen before, not even in the hot tub.

The memory of JJ’s screams and Pope’s tears haunted her just as much as anything. Everything about that day haunted Kiara. Everything about the stupid treasure hunt haunted her.

Kiara must’ve been given a solid three days to grieve in her own way before her parents threw her into therapy.

“It’s for the best,” They had said. “We just want to help you, Kiara.”

For the first two weeks, Kiara’s sessions with the therapist were filled with silence. Not a word spoken between them.

The fifteenth day she broke. A radio announcement on the way into the office about a memorial being held in Sarah Cameron’s honour (John B long forgotten to the public as a fugitive now) was what it took to spark those emotions again, to open up the floodgate into everything she had been bottling up since that night.

That’s when the lies began.

“It will get better, Kiara.”

“One day it will be easier.”

“The pain will be bearable eventually.”

“Give it time.”

But the truth is that she didn’t want time. She didn’t want time or hope for the future because she didn’t want to have a future without John B or Sarah in it. She couldn’t imagine one. The therapist didn’t understand that she hadn’t just lost her two friends, she had lost her family. That even with JJ and Pope still with her, there will always be that void that nobody could fill. That no matter how many breathing and journaling exercises she did, nobody would ever come close to realising just what Kiara felt.

No one but him.

Unlike herself, Pope was heavily stuck in the “denial” stage. Not of the deaths of John B and Sarah, but at his own emotions towards the situation. He was never the type to wear his heart on his sleeve for everyone to see, it even took him being blazed out of his mind to admit whatever feelings he had for her. He overwhelmed himself with anything he could. Work, scholarship interviews, studying for tests they wouldn’t be sitting until September. It was very obvious that Pope didn’t want to open the Pandora’s box from that night. He kept it firmly shut, wanted nothing to do with it.

That’s when she started to feel him slip away.

Kiara knew he needed time, that the second he opened himself up that she would be right there to help him, but until that moment came, Pope was like a lost cause. A cat and mouse game that she could never win. She tried so hard to be there for him in every other sense. But selfishly, Kiara couldn’t stand it. Seeing him act so happy and carefree and as though the summer hadn’t even happened—she knew he was hurting inside but still—she just wished she could do the same.

No matter how much she clung onto Pope she had to let him go. Waiting there until he was ready to come back.

She lost another person.

But JJ…he was a whole other mess.

Kiara hadn’t heard from him in days, more specifically since the day following _that_ night. She had no idea where he was or what he was doing. He clearly didn’t want to be found. Sometimes she would find herself driving past Luke Maybank’s home just to make sure he never went back. He never did.

Kiara didn’t even expect herself to find him there. Things with the therapist had been getting hard, she was prodding more and more and if she was being honest, Kie was just tired. She was tired of it all and she just wanted a place to sit down and not be watched. She needed a place of freedom so she went to the only place she knew she could find it.

The second she walked into the _Chateau_ she was hit with the instant stench of alcohol. Beer bottles scattered around the floor, pillows ripped, walls punched, glasses smashed. The place was a wreck, more than usual. One sweep of the scene in front of her and she found a familiar mop of blond hair on the couch. She didn’t think twice before sitting down.

“JJ.” She breathed out, taking in his appearance. Dark circles under his eyes, sunken in cheeks, dishevelled hair, red eyes. He looked shit, not that she looked any better. But she waited for him to snap at her to go, to leave him alone and stop being so overbearing. She waited for him to push her away like she expected him to do, like Pope had done.

But he didn’t do that.

“He was my brother, Kie.” The blond sobbed, his voice hoarse as though he hadn’t spoken in days and tears already streaming down his face. “He was my fucking brother.”

For the first time since that night, Kiara cried. With JJ in her arms, nothing but each other to lean on, they cried. They cried and they sobbed and they mourned together. Because deep down this is what they both needed. Someone who understood, who you didn’t need to spell it out for or explain or justify anything towards. JJ understood her pain because it was like his own. The burning, inescapable feelings of nothing and everything.

JJ became her rock. She became his.

After their sob-session in the _Chateau_ , the two of them were practically inseparable. A part of them couldn’t bear to be away from each other. Kiara had unofficially moved in with JJ, her parents obviously not too happy with this decision but as long as she attended her therapy sessions, they kept quiet.

JJ came along with her, sat in the waiting room until she was done. He would drive with her to the grocery store. They would always go to the beach together. If Kiara had to go visit her parents or have the occasional dinner with them, JJ would stay back but the two would constantly message to make sure the other was okay. It sounds stupid but Kiara often felt her chest tighten and her palms get sweaty whenever JJ took longer than a couple of minutes to reply. She would start thinking about all the bad things that could have happened to him and they wouldn’t stop until she knew he was okay.

The first night in the _Chateau_ , Kiara and JJ slept in different beds. JJ on the pull-out and Kiara having taken over Big John’s old room. But as she laid there in the dark, wide eyes staring at the ceiling as she tried not to blink, Kiara found herself seeking the company of the blond once again. Because every time she was alone, every time she closed her eyes all she could see was the deceased faces of John B and Sarah and it made her stomach churn.

She had snuck out to him, tip-toeing in the night until she slipped into the pull-out with him. At first, he did nothing. She watched him closely, his body tensing at the sudden intrusion. He was awake, just as she was. He had turned to face her and there was a mutual understanding in his eyes, a knowing look as though the same thoughts that plagued her mind had always plagued his.

He opened his arms as an invitation and Kiara slipped into them. She couldn’t explain, even to this day there were no words to describe it. But being there with JJ, lying there with him, it was comforting. The skin of his bare chest against her cheek, his arms wrapped around her and their legs intertwined. Even the small tugs he gave the end of her curls. It was comforting because it was confirmation that he was there. He was underneath her and he was alive and she could hear his breathing and his heart beating and she wasn’t alone. This is what she needed, it was what they both needed.

It became a habit. She would go to sleep in Big John’s old room, lay there for about thirty minutes before she eventually ventured out to join JJ. They did this for weeks until eventually one night, she had tugged him towards Big John’s room and they had slept there, entangled within each other, no complaints or whispers in the air.

JJ was her rock. And she was his.

Then, things changed. It happened so fast that it was barely believable. The two of them sitting in the living room, neither one talking as they did their own stuff but sat side by side. The sound of the music drifting from the radio in the corner of the room until there was an awful screeching noise. The sound of static echoing through the room until they heard the words that changed everything.

_“Ch—Chateau, do you read me?—Jo—it’s John B—alive, we’re alive!”_

Kiara had to admit, she began to feel hopeful once again.

The adventures and struggles and shenanigans they went through to reunite with their friends seemed never-ending but it happened. Sarah and John B working on retrieving the gold in the Bahamas whilst JJ, Pope and herself worked on clearing John B’s name on the island. Those weeks felt like forever when they knew they were so close to seeing their friends once again. Kiara was pretty sure she didn’t let go of the two of them for _at least_ twenty minutes when she saw them for the first time. Tears were most definitely shed.

But they were back. Sarah and John B were back. The pogues were completed once again and things were supposed to go back to normal, things were supposed to get easier.

They _had_ to…but they didn’t.

It hadn’t even been a week since John B and Sarah returned before her parents were pulling on her reigns, all sympathy they felt for their daughter losing her friends now gone and replaced with the desire to control her after being unable to for so long. They now chaperoned her visits to the therapist, they gave her a curfew and made sure that she wasn’t planning any illegal heists with the pogues. If she had thought they were overbearing before, it had only gotten worse.

Forced back into her own room, Kiara expected the nightmares to fade. She knew they were safe now, everyone was okay. That night shouldn’t matter anymore but it still did. It would never leave her alone. The happy thoughts of her friends being safe and sound, the pogues around a campfire laughing and smiling and joking about how they would spend their portions of the gold, the knowledge that things were better now was simply futile to the demons in her head.

The ones that whispered how things couldn’t stay happy for long. The ones that reminded her things could go down south again. That maybe it won’t be John B and Sarah this time, maybe it will be JJ and Pope. The demons in her head that fought every instinct within her to be happy and content. The ones that kept her from closing her eyes at night.

Just like she was struggling to do so now.

Kiara laid there in her queen-sized bed, sprawled in the middle with her limbs slumped at her sides. Her eyes blankly staring at the ceiling, the faint glow from her lamp illuminating as much of the room as it could. The thoughts in her head were loud and irritating and just wouldn’t stop. With every blink, the demons whispered another passing thought. One that would have her heart racing just at the image, a thin layer of sweat from fear and panic coating her skin. Kiara was exhausted. She just wanted to close her eyes and forget everything. She was supposed to be better and yet since John B and Sarah arrived back home, she had barely been able to sleep a blink.

Her hands stretched out, seeking the comforting presence she was so used to but she was only met with cold sheets. It was an instinctive move, one she did almost every night and she was always met with the same dull pain in her chest when she realised JJ wasn’t beside her. It was crazy to her just how dependent they became on one another. She was so used to having JJ by her side for these last few months that it felt like a void within her when he wasn’t there.

She missed him. Not in the sense that she wished to see him because she saw him every day. But she missed his company. She missed waking up to him cooking something in the _Chateau_ kitchen (it was usually pancakes, she didn’t think he could actually make anything else), missed how easily they worked together whenever they would go out or even doing general chores around the house, missed how she was so used to his body heat like it was an extended part of her. She missed how easy it was to talk to him and how he wouldn’t judge whenever a few tears slipped, missed how he’d be right there whenever she had a nightmare and vice versa. She missed opening her eyes in the morning and knowing that she had him to help her get through her day. She missed JJ, she missed her rock.

Her hands clutched the cold sheets, almost as if she wished it hard enough she would be able to feel him right there. But she couldn’t. She turned her head to the side, her eyes catching glimpse of the clock on her bedside table and she frowned a little.

**_03:48_ **

It was late. Very late. She hadn’t even realised it was that late until now. She thought about her own struggles with falling asleep, how she basked in the few hours she did gain. She would hate for someone to interrupt those moments. Even before all of this happened, she tended to be quite cranky whenever someone woke her up. But there was a selfish part within Kiara that didn’t care. She needed this, she needed him. Otherwise she was pretty sure she would lose her mind.

Before her sleep deprived brain could convince her otherwise, Kiara reached out for her phone, her thumbs moving instinctively until they hovered over his name. She caught her lip between her teeth, a few moments of contemplation passing before she clicked the button and held the phone to her ear.

One ring passed barely before he picked up.

There was a silence, almost as though neither one of them could believe what was happening right now, that the other one was up at such an odd hour. And yet that also seemed to speak enough. The moments of silence passed on for a few seconds longer before she heard JJ speak up.

“I’ll be there in ten.” And then he hung up. Kiara didn’t miss the way her heart swelled a little at how easily JJ was able to read her, even through the phone.

Barely five minutes passed before she heard a small knock on her window and quickly moved to let him in, window closed and locked behind him. She watched him closely as his eyes scanned over her room—as though he hadn’t seen it before tonight—before he turned to look at her, eyebrows furrowed in concern when he noticed just how utterly exhausted she must’ve looked. She hadn’t told anyone about her sleeping problems and went out of her way to hide them from the pogues. She wasn’t sure why, maybe because if she admitted it out loud then she was admitting that everything wasn’t fine.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered into the darkness, and a few seconds passed before JJ was just in front of her, pulling her into a tight hug. She didn’t even feel ashamed at how she sunk into his embrace, head nuzzled into the crook of his shoulder.

“I wish you would have told me earlier.” He murmured to her, she could feel his fingers tracing lightly over her exposed shoulders from the tank top she was wearing. She could’ve almost sighed at the feeling of being this close to him once again.

“I know.” And the unspoken words eventually died between them, neither one speaking as they just held each other. At some point, Kiara wasn’t sure how long they had been standing there, but JJ prompted them towards the bed. She sat up by the headboard as she watched him shrug off his boots and shirt. Kiara’s eyes lingering on the sight of his back for a moment too long before she shifted her gaze to the sheets instead, waiting until he slipped into the bed beside her.

It was almost as though it was one of those nights back in the _Chateau_ , their bodies moving on muscle memory alone as Kiara snuggled up to his side and their bodies intertwined perfectly. Kiara’s hand on his chest, her ear pressed against his skin as she listened to the therapeutic beat of his heart thumping away in his chest. She let out a small sigh, one of both relief and content, the coldness she had felt before fading away. This was what she missed. This is what her parents had stripped her away from. They could make her do as many hours of therapy as they like, but she would never get the same comfort that she would from being in JJ’s arms, having her rock by her side.

“I thought it would get easier,” She eventually spoke up, the only signs she had that JJ was listening and had not fallen asleep were the fingers tugging and twirling her hair. “I thought that once they came back that everything would be…”

“Normal?” He finished.

“Yeah,” She breathed out. “Normal.”

“I don’t think we will ever be normal, not anymore.” JJ admitted to her, his voice low and hoarse, warm and comforting in the darkness. “I think this is our new normal.”

“I don’t like it.” She told him.

“I know.”

“I wish it would stop.”

There was a pause, as though the realisation had hit him that for Kiara the nightmares hadn’t stopped, like he had realised he wasn’t the only one. “Me too.”

The silence engulfed them once again, but it was no longer comforting and soothing. It felt different, the air felt different. Despite how happy they were to be in each other’s arms once again, it had been a month since they had last been in this position. It had been a month since they leaned on one another in this way, since they were this vulnerable to each other in this way. It was the first time in a month that they had been alone without any of the other pogues. And though both of them trusted the pogues with their lives and hearts, there was something different between JJ and Kie. This was more than just an ‘opening up to my friend about my problems’ type of thing. This was a deep, internal understanding. Those moments of grief and mourning had built a bond between the two of them that was indescribable. One of pure honesty and raw emotion. And now laying there on JJ’s chest, all these emotions and feelings whirling inside her mind like a storm, it was like the truth had slapped her in the face. The truth she had been trying to avoid since John B and Sarah returned.

“I’m not okay,” She finally admitted out loud. “I’m not okay, Jay. And I…I don’t know how to make it all stop. The nightmares and the thoughts and…” She took a deep breath, lifting her head so she could look up at him. She was surprised to find that he was already staring down at her. “I’m really not okay.”

JJ’s hand moved to gently cup her cheek, his thumb wiping away the tears she hadn’t even realised began to fall. His own eyes were glossy, that much she could tell despite the shitty lighting they were currently in. He sniffled a bit too, like he was trying to keep his own tears at bay. “I still dream about that night,” He whispered, almost as though he was scared for anyone but her to hear what he had to say. “I still think about how I had nothing to lose, about how I should have taken the hit for it all.”

“Jay.” She breathed out but he shook his head.

“He says he is fine but I know better and sometimes,” He took a minute to catch his breath. “Sometimes I wonder if John B thinks the same thing. If he looks back at all the shit he’s been through the last few months and thinks I would have been better off on that boat.”

“Jay.” She said in a firmer voice, shaking her head. She couldn’t even bear the thought of losing him, especially not now.

He shook his head, a sad smile on his face as his thumb continued to rub comforting circles on her skin. “I was in the deep end, Kie, after _that_ night. I thought I could handle anything. My dad…Rafe and his fucking lackeys…even the cops but…losing John B made me realise that there was one thing I couldn’t survive.” He murmured. “I couldn’t survive being alone. Because no matter what I always had you and Pope and John B. I had the pogues.”

“You always will.” She assured him but he shook his head once again.

“But after that night, I thought I lost it all. My head was screaming to pick up the phone, to go to you or Pope, to see someone. But I couldn’t bear it. I lost one person, I thought…I thought maybe you and Pope would feel the same…thought you would blame me so I distanced myself and it was stupid because it just made everything worse.”

Kie watched him closely, his eyes quickly moving around the different features of her face like he couldn’t bring himself to just concentrate on one thing, like he couldn’t look her in the eyes and say it. “It’s okay.” She whispered, placing her hand over his and giving a small, reassuring squeeze.

“I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t found me that day in the _Chateau,”_ He admitted, something flashing in his eyes that she didn’t have a chance to fully acknowledge before he continued talking. “I don’t know what I would have done or—” He cut himself off and Kie squeezed his hand once again. The words were left unspoken but she knew perfectly well what he was trying to say. It pained her to think she almost never went to the _Chateau_ that day. “My point is…you were there for me, right when I needed you, Kie. You were there for me when I was not okay and you stayed there.”

She smiled softly.

“And I’m gonna be right here for you.” He said to her. “Because you might not be okay right now. Things might still seem shit, trust me, I know they do. But you helped me, and now I am gonna help you.”

“What if getting better doesn’t happen for a very long time?” She whispered, the thoughts that had been plaguing her for months now out in the world, or more specifically out to JJ. But right now, those two things seemed pretty interchangeable.

“Then I guess you’re stuck with my ass for a while, Carrera.” He told her with a small grin on his face. She laughed lightly, shaking head before she laid her head back down on his chest once again.

“How unfortunate.” She commented lightly, a soft smile on her lips when she felt JJ wrap his arms around her and pull her tightly against him, as if they could be any closer.

“Things will get better, Kiara.” He whispered to her, kiss pressed against the top of her head as she closed her eyes. “I promise.”

And for the first time, Kiara actually believed those words.


End file.
